Sunday, April 28, 2013

A beatless
program this week as we play all ambient on Cabeza de Vaca show and Scanner FM.
The show is split into two halves. The first half focused more on experimental and
left-field music is also divided into two halves.

The first two tracks are from Spanish
artists and labels. First up is Mikel Lauki from Pais Vasco (the Basque
Country) who is apparently resident in Barcelona. This is his second release
after“69º54´S​-​135º12´E” which came out on the Audio Gourmet netlabel in 2011
and available for free on Bandcamp.

His latest release comes on the prolific
and highly interesting Audiotalaia label which is also based in Barcelona. All
or most of their releases are also available for free by following links from
the Audiotalaia website .
There is plenty there if you have a look around, including some compilations.

Also for free is the recent release from Lovethechaos,
another Barcelona-based label. This release, recently made available on cassette,
has an interesting history and I quote from the label’s website

“Engendrons emerges as a result Of an
experiment by Lovethechaos Records, in an attempt to bring together different
artists under one same project.

In a secretive exercise, five artists were
invited to create a 15min long sound piece.none of them knew who participated
in this project nor the aim of it. The only premise was to create an
unrhythmical piece to lay them over afterwards and create a unique composition
unknown to the artists until it’s release.”

As for who the artists might be, one could
be D.forma who we played on the recent Spanish music show, although there are
plenty more there as well.

One artist and release that I did not play
on the show this was by Alex Gámez aka Asférico and Störung organiser which you
can also download for free:

The second quarter of the show features tracks
from two albums recently released on Aguirre, the Belgian experimental and
ambient label. We feature a segment of Quiet Evenings (Grant and Rachel Evans;
Motion Sickness of Time Travel) and a whole track by JD Emmanuel who has been
releasing music for over 30 years.

One of his most surprising releases is perhaps
a track that came out on Innervisions a few years ago:

The second half of the show is taken up by
some techno and house artists, mostly B sides, but the Anthony Child (Surgeon)
release is obviously more stand-alone. In particular, the Udacha label track by
Bipolardepth has some beautiful qualities and we will be focussing an entire
show on them in the next few weeks. As for Anthony Child, I always wanted to
start a set with “Not-two” the ambient sound design track from the end of “Breaking
the Frame”

Detroit
legend Alez “Omar” Smith or Omar S gets a going over this week on Cabeza de Vaca show and Scanner FM.
In particular, we highlight his fourth album “Thank You For Letting Me Be
Myself”, released in March this year. The title is a decent follow up to 2011s “It
can be done, but only I can do it”, suggesting a bit of ego behind the man.
However, Omar S does say in a recent interview for Juno

“I name it that because all my fans kept
telling me to be yourself, keep doing what you do. Thanks Homie’s and Tender
Roni’s. This is why I did this Album, for my fans.”

The real gift to the fans is the music,
however, which once again stands tall, athough perhaps not quite as exciting as
“It can be done…”. There is a little bit more restraint this time around, the
only exceptions being the slightly misogynistic samples from “the street” between
a couple of the tracks and the second track (really the first after a small
intro) which features the contribution of Luke Hess as well.

Luke Hess of course recently released a new
album on FXHE, which is the label run by Omar S and who also helps out with
some remixes.

Perhaps the only thing left to do is work a
bit more on the cover art! But full respects with such a sustained level of quality
over the years.

At one stage the label seemed secondary to
the other activities of the duo, but in the last few years has gone on to
become more active and play an important role in fostering many local artists,
several of whom feature on today’s show as well as the label bosses themselves.
The later released their second album “Dasaflex” at the end of 2012, whereas a
lot of the recent attention turns to the label compilation “This is how we roll”.

Anyone needing more might want to turn
their attention to the Mix Mag showcase mix on Soundcloud.

The label has also posted a new video for
Mumdance & Logos“In Reverse” from the compilation.